Lino Capra Vaccina – Echi Armonici da Antico Adagio (2017)

For fans of the Italian avant-garde, few names inspire the loyalty and devotion offered to the percussionist and composer Lino Capra Vaccina – a perfect emblem of the country’s extraordinary movement of musical Minimalism.

He first gained note as a member of Aktuala, a project which laid the groundwork for a entire generation of practitioners following in their wake – creating a hybrid of rock, avant-garde, and ancient musics, while incorporating a diverse number of sonic traditions from across the globe – African, Middle Eastern, Indian, etc, before venturing out on his own.

Vaccina’s career as composer has been marked by two distinct features, an incredibly high bar of quality and ambition, and a tragically slim amount of recorded output. Following his departure from Aktuala, he worked extensively with others – Juri Camisasca, Franco Battiato, etc, and within the short lived super group Telaio Magnetico, but his astounding solo efforts have been slow to emerge. In 1978 he released the legendary LP Antico Adagio, and wouldn’t be heard from again until 1992’s equally extraordinary L’Attesa. Fortunately, over the last few years, Die Schachtel has embarked on a multifaceted project – reissuing Vaccina’s hard to find LPs for a new generation, as well as offering a range of stunning archival recording which had never before seen the light of day. Their latest release – Echi Armonici da Antico Adagio, falls into the later category. It’s nothing short of a momentous event.

Echi Armonici da Antico Adagio draws on the same body of recordings which gifted us Vaccina’s masterpiece Antico Adagio. Like their predecessors, these works rise as lost, towering artifacts of the Italian avant-garde. It’s confounding how they could have remained unheard for so long.

The LP features two sidelong works of pulsing, hypnotic, ritualistic drone – Vaccina’s percussion – gongs, bells, and cymbals, threaded by sustained tones, generated by the voices of Juri Camisasca and Dana Matus. Flirting with the outer-reaches charted by Buddhist and African music, it is a trance-inducing, meditative, cosmic world of sonic interplay – the world beyond, joined with that which lays within. At once Minimalism, and so much more – sheets of resonance, stunning harmonic interplay, and intricate rhythms, rising as one.

Effortless and challenging, Echi Armonici da Antico Adagio demarcates the territory where art meets a higher plane – the body and mind becoming one with sound. Both performances, deeply moving, rewarding, and intellectually rigorous, reveal themselves slowly at every return. Nearly forty years after its rhythms, tones, and ambiences imprinted themselves onto tape, we are encountering one great lost works of musical Minimalism, and unquestionably one of the most important albums to appear this year. Not to be missed on any count, these are the heights of the Italian avant-garde, at their very best. You can check it out below and pick it up via SoundOhm, or from a record shop near you.

Claudio Rocchi - Suoni di Frontiera (1976/2017)

Claudio Rocchi – Suoni Di Frontiera (1976 / 2017)


An unavoidable and formative element of Italy’s long history of avant-garde music, is its resistance to category and definition. Even in the face of this, Claudio Rocchi’s Suoni Di Frontiera, originally released in 1976, is an anomaly – a body of introspective synthesizer works, stretching out to the world beyond. Italian experimental and avant-garde music from this period is distinct, in part, unlike other contexts in Europe and America, because many artists begin within the realms of popular music, slowly pushing toward more ambitious creative territories as time wore on. Rocchi is no exception. He entered the public eye during the late 1960’s and early 70’s, working within the idioms of psychedelic rock, folk, and prog. While some of Suoni Di Frontiera’s elements are present in his earlier and later works, nothing reaches the crystalline totality of its being. It is the lone, explicitly avant-garde effort in Rocchi’s long and noted career.

The ambition and breadth of Suoni Di Frontiera is overwhelming. It achieves what few have – realizing the dream set forth by the pioneers of early electronic music, creating a new democratic architecture of sound, as creatively ambitious, as it is accessible. It is a realization of the avant-garde, which could have only emerged from the realms of pop – sixteen discrete works of acoustics instrumentation, electronics, processing, and synthesis – freestanding, while intertwined as a towering whole. An album which, despite the relentless pace of its challenges, is so seductive and inviting, that it offers an open door to an entire world beyond.


Like so much of the Italian avant-garde’s output, Suoni Di Frontiera is nearly impossible to locate – to constrain with simple definition. A restless constellation, delving from one possibly to the next – pulsing, rhythmic tones, sheets of pure abstraction, fragments of voice and environmental sound, each captured and spun wild by tape loops, beautiful ambiences and space age sounds. The scope of what it approaches is so great, attempts to describe can only fall short.


Before us is one of the great unsung works of 20th Century electronics. An album of astounding beauty and ambition – its reemergence holding the potential to reform the standing perception of electronic music as a whole. You can check it out below and pick it up via SoundOhm, or from a record shop near you.


A truly remarkable disc.

Spontaneous Music Ensemble - Karyōbin (1968)

Invaluable CD reissue for Spontaneous Music Ensemble’s groundbreaking and inspirational Karyōbin from 1968 - a pivotal moment in the history of freejazz/improvised music featuring the combined talents of Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Dave Holland, John Stevens and others, now presented by Martin Davidson’s lagendary Emanem label on its golden jubilee, remixed and remastered from the original tapes with new liner notes. To mark this important release, we're offering a special 25% discount on all the previous Emanem and Psi releases. Only valid today and tomorrow! The histories of freejazz, with subsequent narratives of improvisation which grew from it, are difficult  to trace. What began as a distinctly African American art-form, rapidly became a rallying cry for freedom, adopted and reformed by countless artists, stretching out across the globe. Though not without its complications and missteps, this music is bound to the idea of communion - an open and deeper means through which to converse - something American culture has never fully embraced, particularly across racial and cultural lines. In the sixty or so years since it originally took form, it has consistently found a more welcoming home in Europe, be that for its originators, fans, or new subsequent, localised forms. Off all the remarkable gestures of freeimprovisation which sprang up in Europe from the 1960’s on, few have commanded the respect and renown of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, a project whose seminal second release Karyōbin, originally released on Island in 1968, we are thrilled to have before us now. The Spontaneous Music Ensemble was founded in South London by John Stevens and Trevor Watts, during the mid 1960’s, following a set of perimeters set forth by Stevens - If you can't hear another musician, you're playing too loud, and if the music you're producing doesn't regularly relate to what you're hearing others create, why be in the group?. While these principles have been adopted so widely, that they have almost come to define the root principles of improvisation itself, at the time they were radical, giving way to a new philosophical movement in sound. Where most improvisation of the era drew on a furious, emotive fire, SME introduced a deeply introspective, often extremely quite, form. Scraping out jagged shards of jazz that felt truly freee - abandoning structure, melody, rhythm, and logic in favor of an ever-changing, whimsical, disorienting, wholly instinctual tumult of activity. It isn’t hard to spot the politics at the heart of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble’s efforts. Through sound, it attempted to achieve democratic aims - to offer importance to every voice within the collective. This can be seen within its constantly evolving line-up, as much as the music it made. Over the course of its existence - until Stevens' untimely death in 1994, it folded an astounding group of improvisators into its ranks -  Barry Guy, Dave Holland, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Ian Carr, Jeff Clyne, John Butcher, Kenny Wheeler, Kent Carter, and Paul Rutherford, among numerous others. Arguably more than any single project, it is the great emblem of British Jazz - its greatest voices, sculpting what have become many of its most important lasting legacies, in real time.  Karyōbin, which is the project’s seconded recorded release, features one of the more well represented line ups within the ensemble during this era, pulling Dave Holland, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, and Kenny Wheeler into its standing ranks. The result is a soulful, considered conversation in sound - intricate and challenging, as it elemental. This is the distinctly British sound and approach to freeimprovisation at its very best. One of the great artifacts of its era, as historical important as it is creatively and sonically engrossing, we are thrilled to see Karyōbin returned to our hands. Remastered from the original tapes. Absolutely essential for any fan of freeimprovisation and jazz. Grab it while it lasts.

Auriol arm-lifter...

... and a beautiful Verdier's turntable, with Shindo bronze arm mount and Meursault arm...

... same Auriol's I own and use since a long time.

... a nice French-made arm-lifter, indeed: very smooth.

Gary Peacock Trio - Now This (ECM)

Another gem from ECM... Gary Peacock played with virtually all the best musicians on the planet: Keith Jarrett and Ralph Towner to name the most famous who came to mind...

... but he's more than a stellar double-bass player: he's also a superb composer!

This disk is truly magical: I simply cannot stop listening to it in loop-mode.

Music is so relaxed and lyrical... the trio interactions is awesome and they don't play as soloists but as a perfect musical team.

Recording quality is of seldom heard quality, as well... truly remarkable balance and true to life sonics.


Buy it!

Rene and Georgette Magritte with their Dog after the War

Lothar Wolleh captured this portrait of 'René and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War' in 1967, and the image went on to inspire a much-loved folk song of the same name by Paul Simon.

Paul Simon's song was a pix in music... nice to see what inspired him.

Cool.

Ariel Kalma, French Archives 1977-80 (4-LP)

It’s an incredible moment in the history of recorded music. At SoundOhm we’re lucky enough to hear it all. Within such a stunning landscape, it’s impossible to pick favourites, but Milan based imprint Black Sweat always comes out at the top. And they return with what may be their most ambitious effort yet, a stunning four LP box set of previously unreleased archival recordings by Ariel Kalma. The life and work of Ariel Kalma is a remarkable journey in sound - an emblem of the singular thinking that makes great art. Kalma was born in Paris, beginning to play the saxophone during his early years. His musical career was kickstarted with tours and collaborations with Salvatore Adamo and Baden Powell, but before long he began to venture out on his own, creating experimental tape pieces, and instrumental works. During 1974 he traveled to India, studying the country’s classical traditions, a journey which equally served as the foundation for his developing interests in meditation, drone, and minimalist music. In 1975, Kalma began recording and self-releasing his own albums, the beginnings of an incredible body of work which stretches through the 1980s, collectively becoming the stuff of legend on the collectors market over the ensuing years. Historically Kalma has been cast as a member of the New Age movement, which has foundations in truth - his attempts to offer listeners a “mind cleanse,” through his work, but understanding the nature and proximity of his efforts is far more complex. A search for music’s connection to, and effects on, the body, mind, and spirit, is nothing new, nor is it limited to New Age thinking. These ideas trace through the millennia and countless traditions from across the globe, lingering below many of the efforts of the 20th century avant-garde, particularly within those of Minimalists like La Monte Young and Terry Riley. Kalma is better understood from this point of view - an avant-gardist, who looks beyond intellectualism and ideas, for the deeper, more intimate possibilities in sound. Subtle hints at the true proximity of his work might be drawn from the fact that he worked extensively at Groupe de Recherches Musicales, one of the great centres of avant-garde electronic music, and collaborated with a number of its artists. Until around five years ago, beyond a small handful of serious record collectors and fans, Ariel Kalma’s legacy and music had largely fallen from view. He hadn’t released an album since 1989, and nearly his entire catalog had fallen out of print. What began as a sputtering momentum in a few corners of globe, gathered incredible steam in 2013 with Black Sweat’s reissue of his 1978 collaboration with Richard Tinti, Osmose. Ever since, the imprint has shown a remarkable dedication to the artist’s work, following it with lovingly produced vinyl reissues of his seminal works for the early 80’s, Open Like A Flute, Musique Pour Le Reve Et L'Amour, and Interfrequence. French Archives 1977 - 1980, the lavish four LP box set which now emerges in Black Sweats cradling embrace, draws from previously unreleased recordings from one of Ariel Kalma’s most creatively rich periods. Divided under four headings - Sarasvati Planet Ariel, Planet Air, Ascend Descend and Astral Cathedral, these works were conceived as both autonomous works, sculpting distinct sonic   environments, as well as for group therapy sessions for healing, trance and relaxation. In many ways, when viewed as a single body emerging from the shadows of time, these lost recordings offer a remarkable revelation into the diversity of Kalma’s practice. With their ambiences, extended tones, and repetitive rippling melodies, most of the composer’s previously know work has offered easy connections to the efforts of the New Age Movement and to Minimalists like Terry Riley, La Monte Young, and Jon Hassell. The works contained within French Archives 1977 - 1980, display an even more diverse range - all so engrossing and of such a remarkable quality, that it’s an unquestionable sin that they have remained unheard for so long.  While the works contained within French Archives 1977 - 1980 rest comfortably within Kalma’s standing body of work, they do offer an interesting window into the rumblings working within the cultural consciousness of the time - a reconciliation of the fading optimists of the hippy dream. There is a subtle darkness in this box of works, not always explicit, but there, laying in wait - peaking through the ambiences with dystopian synth lines. The LPs Sarasvati Planet Ariel, Ascend Descend and Astral Cathedral all dance with, and push the territory for which Kalma is best know - works stretching from harsh abstract electronics, sublime done, and rippling melodic works for synthesizer, organ, and other acoustic instruments, but across these three LPs he strays considerably closer to the efforts of ambient Krautrock pioneers like Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh - bridges between popular culture and the underground. Perhaps the most startling gesture within the set is Planet Air, opening a realm of Kalma’s explorations which has remained almost entirely unknown. Drenched in brittle electronic rhythms, images of dark and futuristic clouds gather over Paris, offering moments far closer to the Berlin School of electronic music, than anything you’ve heard from New Age or Minimalist music. French Archives 1977 - 1980 is a crowning achievement on Black Sweats long and loving dedication to Ariel Kalma - lavishing, lovingly produced, while artisticallyicly engrossing and full of revelations which expand what we know of the composer and bring him into a new view. Absolutely stunning on every count. Unquestionably one of the most beautiful and important releases of the year.

440 mm

That was - indeed it was - the reason for the mighty EMT 927st 44 cm diam. huge platter...

Thanking Tohru Seya-san for his always nice pixies...

The Japan Way

The '70s Ginza-style...

Pink Floyd's Royal Mail stamps

Cool collector's item...

...mooooh...

Harry Partch's Petaluma Tapes

On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma (LP)
*Limited Edition LP release (180g vinyl) with previously unpublished bonus tracks + free download card*

stock is due soon, will begin shipping this Friday

** A towering monument in sound by a seminal composer** The history of American avant-garde music is a snarled knot, twisting through the decades, spanning genre, practice, and approach. Most narratives plant its origins within the post-war period, orbiting around John Cage, Morton Feldman, and those artists springing from the movements of Fluxus and free-jazz. American creative innovation issued unquestionable influence over the later half of 20th century, but the root of its radicalism was earlier, with its origins often misplaced. Rather growing from Europe, it begins as a distinctly indigenous form, the seeds planted by a handful of visionary and singular minds working in the shadows, laying the groundwork for what was to come. Of these, the composer Harry Partch is arguably the most notable. One of the most important and singular voices of his century, he the focus of New World Recording latest LP, a lavishly expanded reissue of his seminal 1966 release And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma.

 Harry Partch was a near perfect archetype of a now faded vision of American creative life. Cranky, single-minded, unflinchingly principled. A man whose artistic ideals led him to poverty and obscurity. A sometimes hobo drifter, who heard music where no else did. A composer, music theorist, and inventor / builder of instruments, Partch was born at the dawn of the 20th century, raised in the American West when it still held traces of being wild. Musically talented from a young age, his ear drew him toward the sounds of Asia, and the musics of the Native American communities with whom he interacted and met. By the time Partch enrolled in music school, his rigorous independence and nonconformity, with the seeds planted by these remarkable structures and sounds, had taken him too far. It wasn’t long before he struck out toward sonic locations unknown.

Despite his natural talent as a musician, Partch was destined to be a composer. He couldn’t play by society’s rules, let alone those imposed by the constraints of Western Classical music, no mater how wild and avant-garde. In his early 20’s, looking outward and beyond, he began experimenting with Just-Intonation - after the Mexican composer Julián Carrillo, the first to do so in the West, slowly expanding his tonal range and adapting instruments to meet his requirements as the years wore on. At the outset of 1930’s, he abandoned nearly all connection to Western music, setting out to liberate the listener form the constraints of the 12 tone system, increasingly building wild, unique instruments from scratch. Partch’s narrative is complex. He was widely respected by many of his peers, particularly Henry Cowell, Otto Luening, and Aaron Copland, among many others. During the Post-War period, he increasingly found moderate fame, enabling more security within his wandering, drifter’s life - offered more opportunities to perform his works and teach, while issuing self-released recordings via mail order. The later places him as an early precursor of the DIY movement, which would come to prominence decades later. Despite all of this, Partch often proved too ahead of his time, and placed extreme demands on his contemporary listeners. There was only so far they were willing to go. Because of this, despite his incredible importance within the history of American music, not to mention the avant-garde at large, he wasn’t offered the opportunity to record a wide commercial release until 1966, the seminal And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma, the first of only four albums to emerge during the last decade of his life.
And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma, reissued now by New World Recordings - the second in their series dedicated to offering the composer the attention and justice he rightfully deserves, following their brilliant 2015 release, A Portrait, is as important as Partch works get. Incredibly beautiful, it is also a perfect entry point for uninitiated listeners, featuring more constrained and focused works, from a composer know for his adoration of the dramatic and grand scale. Comprised of 34 duets - played on the composers unique instruments, which demarcate the verses of the complete work, the album is a rippling cascade of complex rhythms (thanks to the contribution of the legendary Michael Ranta) and tonal relationships - strange and incredible dialogs in sound, which open the window onto how ahead of his time and important Partch was. A true gem in his catalog, and unquestionably one of the most important artifacts within the canon of 20th century composition, New World’s edition is as necessary and as timely as records reissues come. Guided by Partch’s full original statement for the first commercial release of the piece, previously only excerpted, it is an illumination of the composer’s broad purpose - his mission in sound. In addition to the late  Bob  Gilmore’s fantastic liner notes, this edition is expanded to include the original recording of Verse 17, never before released and featuring Partch playing and recording his legendary Adapted Viola. As essential as them come. Grab this one fast, it's a towering monument in sound by a seminal composer - one far too few have recognized and heard.

Otto, the G-Wagen

A lifetime-long adventure... or adventure as life-style... anyway, such a worth-life for Christine and Gunther...

 

"In 1988, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gunther Holtorf and his wife Christine set off on a monumental road trip that would span 26 years, 177 countries, and nearly 550,000 miles (885,139 km). The couple originally planned to spend just 18 months touring the African countryside in their Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen named “Otto,” but a year and a half eventually turned into a continuous voyage interrupted by only a few periods of rest. Without sponsorship, publicity, or the online fanfare that such a journey would have today, the couple traveled purely for the sake of traveling, determined to see as much of the world as they could."

Read more clicking here... cannot say only the mighty G-Wagen, aka Otto, could stand such an heavy life-long journey.

In my humble opinion: simply The Best vehicle in the world, period.

John Carpenter's Anthology

John Carpenter is a legend. As the director and music composer behind dozens of classic movies, Carpenter has established a reputation as one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of modern cinema, as well as one of its most influential musicians.

The minimal, synthesizer-driven themes to films like Halloween, Escape From New York, and Assault on Precinct 13 are as indelible as their images, and their timelessness was evident as Carpenter performed them live in a string of internationally sold-out concert dates in 2016.

Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998 collects 13 classic themes from Carpenter’s illustrious career together on one volume for the first time. Each theme has been newly recorded with the same collaborators that Carpenter worked with on his hit Lost Themes studio albums: his son, Cody Carpenter, and godson, Daniel Davies.

TRACK LISTING:

1. In the Mouth of Madness
2. Assault on Precinct 13
3. The Fog
4. Prince of Darkness
5. Santiago (Vampires)
6. Escape from New York
7. Halloween
8. Porkchop Express (Big Trouble in Little China)
9. They Live
10. The Thing
11. Starman
12. Dark Star
13. Christine

John Carpenter's loved subbass, so be sure: low-end to-die-for on these discs!

 

Penguin disaster as only two chicks survive from colony of 40,000!

Something wrong going on? 

Deadly wrong, indeed!

 Please read The Guardian's article... and let's think about it.

Zippers and Rolling Stones!

Thanking YKK...

or...

... call me crazy;-), but... Andy Wharol or not... my choice goes to the color one;-)))

FZ's Legacy

This is just an amazing and useful tool to (better) understand Frank Zappa's musical heirloom.

... for posterity.

Piero Umiliani's Italian "poliziotteschi" movies and OSTs

Piero Umiliani Studio Umiliani: Rare and Unreleased Tracks From Sound Work Shop Archives '67-'83

• 2×LP + Bonus CD 

• 1. Avventura
• 2. Missione Speciale
• 3. Petra – Tema Jazz
• 4. Petra – Sottofondo Generico In Re Minore
• 5. L’Invasione Dei Folletti
• 6. Non Mollare
• 7. Commandos
• 8. Il Burattinaio M8+M9
• 9. Vita Cittadina
• 10. C’è Un Fantasma Nel Mio Letto M47
• 11. Pane Burro E Marmellata M52+M47
• 12. Preistoria
• 13. Ratko E L’orso – Tema Moog
• 14. Grand Canyon
• 15. C’è Un Fantasma Nel Mio Letto M68
• 16. Le Cascate di Iguaçù
• 17. Musica Nell’aria
• 18. Risaie
• 19. Millenni
• 20. Ritrovarsi

Piero Umiliani’s Sound Work Shop archives to select rare and unreleased tracks • First archive compilation of Piero Umiliani’s work for the Rome-based record label and the first one focussing on Piero Umiliani in recent years. Exotica, psychedelic jazz-funk, proto-trip hop: this selection is a cross-cutting portrait of Umiliani's activity during the golden years of his Sound Work Shop, the studio-laboratory where he has been playing, creating and experimenting with total freedom from 1969 to 1983. This exhaustive compilation comes as a deluxe, 2xLP gatefold issue and is accompanied with liner notes and archive images.

Italian Prog '70s - Battiato at his best!

Franco Battiato, 1971-73
There is no figure in Italian music, nor within the country’s shimmering, expansive avant-garde, who demands the respect and awe offered to Franco Battiato. He is the beginning and the end. An artist whose output, stretching across six decades, is so diverse and singular, that it defies any concrete definition. We are thrilled to announce their long awaited reissue on vinyl by Superior Viaduct. This is nothing short of a momentous event, placing three of the most remarkable albums of the 1970’s into a new generation’s hands, offering them the attention and appraisal they have always deserved. In celebration of the long awaited reissue of three records so close to our heart, we're offering a special 10% discount on all Superior Viaduct releases (15% off for the members!). Only valid until Sunday!

** 3 LP in bundle** There is no figure in Italian music, nor within the country’s shimmering, expansive avant-garde, who demands the respect and awe offered to Franco Battiato. He is the beginning and the end. An artist whose output, stretching across six decades, is so diverse and singular, that it defies any concrete definition - darting from psychedelic Prog, definitive gestures in the history of Minimalism, to the heights of explicit Pop. Fans of avant-garde and experimental music have long coveted Battiato’s five seminal Minimalist marvels issued between 1974 and 1978 - Clic, M.elle Le "Gladiator", Franco Battiato, Juke Box, and L'Egitto Prima Delle Sabbie, but far fewer are aware of their predecessors, three brilliant albums issued by Bla Bla during the early 1970’s. Fetus, Pollution, and Sulle Corde Di Aries - a stunning trio branching into the outer reaches of Rock and Roll, are among the great gestures in sonic radicalism of the era. We are thrilled to announce their long awaited reissue on vinyl by Superior Viaduct. This is nothing short of a momentous event, placing three of the most remarkable albums of the 1970’s into a new generation’s hands, offering them the attention and appraisal they have always deserved. Battiato’s career as a singer began during the mid-1960’s, but his attempts within the Pop realms failed to chart success. By the end of the decade his attentions increasingly turned toward radical gestures in experimental electronic music and synthesis. Beginning in 1971 he began working with the fledgling independent label Bla Bla, which would subsequently rise as one of most renowned imprints in Italian music, releasing, in addition to Battito’s music, groundbreaking albums by Juri Camisasca, Aktuala, and a number of others. Issued later that year, his full length debut Fetus shattered nearly every category of music during its day. With foundations formed by the VCS3 synthesizer, it is credited among the first electronic albums created in Italy, though, even to that end, this creation is unwilling to rest so easily within genre or categorisation. Battiato is often referred to as Italy's answer to Brian Eno, an allusion to his melding of synthesis, avant-garde sensibilities with Pop, and later sculpting of minimalist ambience. Rightfully, that distinction should be reversed. At almost every turn, Battiato was ahead of his more famous peer. Fetus released a full year before Roxy Music’s first album, and two before Eno’s solo debut, Here Come The Warm Jets. Equally, Battaito’s subsequent shift toward radical instrumental music, proceeded Eno’s by leaps and bounds. While heard by few at the time, when framed in its own multilayered context, Battiato’s debut outstrips almost every effort of the early 70’s in ambition and accomplishment. Fetus is impossible to nail down. Constructed as a thematic whole, enigmatically sub-titled "Ritorno al Mondo Nuovo" (Return to the New World) and dedicated to Aldous Huxley, it skirts effortlessly into the territories of Pop ballad, synthesis, Musique concrète, folk, and psychedelic Prog. Stunning and brilliant on every count, it employs a distinctly detached lyricism, an approach which would spark a new breed of songwriting in Italy. A writhing, gauzily punctuated pool of sound, Fetus is arguably  greatest album of 1971, and unquestionably one of the most important albums of decade. Long overlooked and neglected, this reissue, lovingly produced in its original gatefold sleeve, is as important as they come. Absolutely essential on every count. Pollution, Franco Battiato’s second LP, issued in 1972, catapulted itself into the world on the creative momentum encountered within Fetus. A rich tapestry of diverse sonic organisation, touching the territories of Pop ballad, synthesis, Musique concrète, folk, and psychedelic Prog. Featuring Baroque textures, motorik rhythms, and oblique vocals, it encounters its creator more at ease within these radical realms. This is a world all his own - the ambitious, never before seen heights of Rock and Roll. Constructed by the same band of collaborators which helped him create its predecessor, augmented by an eighteen-year-old Roberto Cacciapaglia on keys, within Pollution these remarkable voices are pushed into the foreground. Filled with Kraut / Psyche riffs, hypnotic grooves and cinematic flourishes, the album is a topical marvel, a product of the era, built on themes of environmental catastrophe. Futurist allusions seep in through eccentric lyrics, all joined within a stunning, shimmering landscape of sound. This is the album which solidified Battiato’s status as one of the foremost cult figure in music. Like Fetus, Pollution is one of the most important albums of its decade. Long overlooked and neglected, this reissue, lovingly produced in its original gatefold sleeve, is as important as they come. Absolutely essential on every count.   Sulle Corde Di Aries, issued in 1973, is Battiato's last effort of wild eccentric Pop music before venturing toward more explicitly avant-garde realms. It is arguably the most ambitious and remarkable of the cycle of albums which began with Fetus, pushed further by Pollution. Filled with remarkable energy and creative brilliance, the album is a hint at what was to come, the laboratory in which Battiato's wild mutant seeds were planted. It is a true masterpiece on every count, yet, for those aware of his early work, the most inexplicably overlooked and neglected of the three. Sulle Corde Di Aries, far more cohesive than its predecessors, is an evolving cycle of four electroacoustic suites - each drenched in structural challenge and shimmering tone, flirting with the minimalism of Terry Riley and the rhythmic brilliance of Can, while managing to sound like nothing else of its day. Though the album features similar vocal treatments to those on Fetus and Pollution, binding them together as a conceptual body, Sulle Corde Di Aries is marked by long extended instrumental passages, as abstract and challenging as anything in the experimental music world, pregnant with allusions folk traditions, while still penetrating and pushing the potential of Pop. The result is overwhelming. Even four and a half decades after its initial release, the album feels revolutionary and stunningly fresh. A tangent in sound, which few others have ever reached. Overwhelmingly beautiful and creatively brilliant, Sulle Corde Di Aries is the final chapter in Battiato's intervention in the realm of Pop music, before his return at the end of the decade. Long overlooked and neglected, this reissue, lovingly produced in its original gatefold sleeve, is as important as they come. Absolutely essential on every count.